> If you were to design an entire ATC system from scratch (pilot interfaces, sensors everywhere in the airport and planes etc) it can be automated.
Even then you'll probably run into the long-tail distribution issues, similar to self-driving cars. 99.9% of all situations are pretty standard, but once in a while something so abstruse happens that it's not pre-programmed and requires some creativity to solve.
> What you can probably do is create software which observes traffic and simulates it into the future and notifies the human ATCs about risks.
Fully agree. Some of the recent close calls really were "obvious" much earlier, meaning they were not caused by late course changes.
Even then you'll probably run into the long-tail distribution issues, similar to self-driving cars. 99.9% of all situations are pretty standard, but once in a while something so abstruse happens that it's not pre-programmed and requires some creativity to solve.
> What you can probably do is create software which observes traffic and simulates it into the future and notifies the human ATCs about risks.
Fully agree. Some of the recent close calls really were "obvious" much earlier, meaning they were not caused by late course changes.